Looking at starting a small local business but the domain that I am really wanting is only available in .CO or .NET. I can change it and make it a more local (tied to the area) and get a .COM. My main question is does it really matter anymore if you have a .COM or not?

.net is a very recognizable domain, so that might be a good way to go. I don't see any reason why it would matter, otherwise. Personal preference and recognizability, maybe. Might be worth looking into who is actually hosting .co before planting yourself there.

If your selling in the USA then get .com. If your selling in a specific country then get that countries address e.g. com.au, .com.fr, co.uk, etc. It gives the users a mental short cut to currency, shipping, relevancy, etc. Also it will help your search, google normally puts local shops higher in the search results.

Side Note: I wish they had of dropped the .com, .net, etc and just had the name. It only confuses users, why is whitehouse.gov different to whitehouse.com, whitehouse.net or whitehouse.com.au.

Well, when they started registering .co I just thought that it was a global TLD like .com. Looking it up it is recognized as a global tld but I did not know that it is acctually Columbias tld. With that being said I think that I will register them both and redirect one to whichever one I want to use.

DrkSide wrote:Well, when they started registering .co I just thought that it was a global TLD like .com. Looking it up it is recognized as a global tld but I did not know that it is acctually Columbias tld. With that being said I think that I will register them both and redirect one to whichever one I want to use.

People are still going to confuse the .co one with .com, and since that one is already taken you can't redirect to/from it.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

Jambe wrote:He'll redirect the .co to the .net (as opposed to the .com to the .net).

But that doesn't help in the very (most?) common case of the users just typing .com and getting taken somewhere else entirely with no way for him to redirect them back. While it's true that many people will find their way to the site via search engines (rather than typing in the domain), the domain is likely going on things like business cards. And most people will just type .com on the end of whatever domain you tell them; they'll even type it when copying it off a business card that plainly says something else (and if it's ".co" pure muscle memory will add the "m").

dragmor wrote:Side Note: I wish they had of dropped the .com, .net, etc and just had the name. It only confuses users, why is whitehouse.gov different to whitehouse.com, whitehouse.net or whitehouse.com.au.

Well, then who gets to decide where a given domain points? Without TLDs, you would've had a situation where essentially the USA was the arbitrator who got to decide if (say) "Victoria" pointed to the website for a state in Australia, the capitol of British Columbia, a city in Minnesota, a lingerie company, or the personal website of Ms. David Beckham. Sure, that would've gotten worked out with "VictoriaBC" and "VictoriasSecret" etc, but would Australia be happy with the US (or US registrar companies) dictating how its government domains were named?

UberGerbil wrote:But that doesn't help in the very (most?) common case of the users just typing .com and getting taken somewhere else entirely with no way for him to redirect them back. While it's true that many people will find their way to the site via search engines (rather than typing in the domain), the domain is likely going on things like business cards. And most people will just type .com on the end of whatever domain you tell them; they'll even type it when copying it off a business card that plainly says something else (and if it's ".co" pure muscle memory will add the "m").

I strongly protest thy compact-quotery.

And yeah, I get it, I was just clarifying DrkSide's (apparent) position. If he publicizes the .net, he'll just let the .co hang out in the shadows and redirect if somebody leaves the m off the other person/group's URL (not sure they'll appreciate that...).

On one of the sites I helped create, we've got a .com.au domain and we've been offered a fair amount of money for it because its the first result that pops up in google, if you search "Aussie Diggers", haha.